


For Sale: One Derek Hale. Used.

by Pennin_Ink



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Absolution, Forgiveness, Gen, Good Byes, Self Loathing, Trauma, blame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennin_Ink/pseuds/Pennin_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the warehouse, after everything, Derek can't get the taste of Gerard's flesh and blood out of his mouth. All he wants is to be alone, but there's still one more good bye to be said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Sale: One Derek Hale. Used.

It’s not like he’s traumatized. He’s past that now. Trauma sunk into his bones and twisted his innards long ago, and there’s just no room for any more.

But he can _taste_ it. The old man’s blood is coating his tongue and he’s brushed his teeth so much his gums have actually bled. Though that may be the effects of  whatever the hell Peter did to him still hanging around, making him heal more slowly.

God, he can still taste it. Gerard’s blood, weak and thin. His skin, papery and loose against Derek’s lips. He can still feel Scott’s claws sunk into his neck, putting pressure on his bones so he can’t move, can’t close his mouth, can’t stop it happening.

He’s not a fool. He made sure he was alone before he’d curled in on himself, let the shift overtake him and hide his face from the shadows. He can feel Gerard mocking him, wherever he is. And Kate came from that, and he’d loved her, and now his own skin feels disgusting on him and he wants to shed it, wants to slip free of himself and wash away everything he’s ever touched because it’s all become crude oil coating his body.

Alone, free from anyone’s gaze but his own, he lets himself feel scared. The alpha pack are breathing down his neck and he’s not ready. He’s got Gerard’s blood somewhere in his body and Scott’s claws leaving phantom scars in his neck and Peter’s words spinning through his head and it’s all he can do not to scream.

He’s too scared to make a sound, even here in this dark corner of the rail depot, even knowing as he does that his is the only heart beat in range. He’s terrified Peter will hear the slightest sob, so he chokes it back. Swallows her name until he’s gagging on it, asphyxiating on her memory.

He’s sick. He knows he is. Because right now he wants nothing more than to slip into the cemetary and find that impersonal grave and dig his way to her, curl up with the reunited halves of her body and wait it out. Just lie there until his body finally gives up on him and he can belong to her again. With her. At her side where he was always meant to be.

He can feel Laura in his blood. Peter’s there too, and mom. Granddad. The alphas who came before him, they’re swirling through his head and he can’t tell if their bays are mocking him or urging him on. They never tell him anything useful. He’s keeping them contained so tightly it feels like his skin will shake apart. Sometimes he’s amazed they haven’t clawed their way out of him, left him gutted and alone while they ran as far away from the ashes as possible. The ashes that have sunk into the lines of his fingertips, the beds of his nails. They’re tangled in his hair and the creases of his skin, invisible and indelible.

It’s too much. The power’s too much for his body to handle, the responsibility to heavy for his shoulders to bear. And right now he would give anything, _anything_ , if it was him that night in the woods with Peter, if he’d been the one to die. Laura would have known how to avenge him, how to handle Beacon Hills and all the madness it contained. But Peter hadn’t wanted him. For once, he wasn’t the useful one. The one time he wasn’t the target, and he would move Heaven and Earth to have been.

“Derek.”

His head snaps up, his wolfish features fading away from one breath to the next. He can’t…he’s not ready.

If Jackson hears the unsteady drumming of his heart, he doesn’t react to it. He only moves into Derek’s dark corner and kneels by him.

“You look wrecked.” He says with a quirk of his lips. Derek just stares at him. Of all people to see him like this, _Jackson_?

“Yeah, you would’ve forgotten that.” Jackson says. “You do look awful, though. Not that I blame you. I mean, what McCall did was pretty low.”

“You remember?”

Jackson looked down at his hands. “Yeah. I remember lots of it. I can’t--” He shakes his head. “Know what? Never mind. I came to say thank you.”

“What?” Derek shifts against the wall, sits up taller.

“Yeah, I…” He clears his throat. “Look, I don’t want to do this. But what you did. For me.” He swallows. “I know it wasn’t easy for you. Okay? I get that. I mean I don’t…there’s a lot I need to catch up on, but I—I’m not blind. I know you’ve got a serious one-track mind with this whole pack thing and, heh, I was your first.”

“So why thank me?” Derek demands. “I did this to you. I turned you into that thing.”

“Dude, _I_ did this to me.” Jackson shoots back. “Don’t you go taking all the credit for my screw-up, man. I wanted power, I wanted recognition, I friggin’ got it, okay? I know I’m screwed up. I’ve _always_ known I’m screwed up. Dude, I was there that night, remember? I watched you kill your uncle, I saw the freaky red-eyes and that voice thing? I knew you were messed up and I took advantage of that. I manipulated you. It’s kind of my thing.”

“Don’t absolve me, Jackson.” Derek said through his teeth.

“Well someone has to!” Jackson snapped. “You could’ve used me. You could’ve had me kill Argent for you, or Allison. You don’t think I could feel it? Do you know what it’s like? It’s not the anger that drew me, Derek, it was the _pain_. And man, you were giving it off in waves. If anyone had a right to revenge, it was you. But you chose to end it. Do you have any idea what it was like for me, that night? Half monster, remembering all the people I killed, looking like a total freak in front of the one person--” He cuts off, choking on the end of the word.

“I never, ever wanted her to see me like that. But you…you gave me a chance. You gave me a little dignity back. In the end, you gave me the one thing I never thought I’d have again.”

Derek meets his eye, and Jackson is smiling, grim.

“A choice.”

Derek searches Jackson’s face. His wolf is calling out to the beta in Jackson’s body, trying to entice it closer. Derek forces it back. “So what happens now?”

Jackson looks back at his hands. “I don’t know. I’ve—I’ve got a lot to think about. A lot of nightmares waiting for me. Maybe I’ll leave. For a while. Just till I can figure things out.”

Derek breaks a little at that. His wolf howls at the loss of another beta.

Jackson looks back at him. “Just for a while.” He promises. “I—I owe you, Derek. I caused you so many problems, I just—I can’t be what you need right now, okay? I’m not in a position to repay you. Me in your pack, it’s just asking for trouble.”

Derek can’t speak. There’s no answer to that.

“Besides, you tried to kill Lydia and there’s no way in hell I’m forgiving you for that any time soon. Better if we just go our separate ways until we figure out what the hell it is we’re trying to do here.”

“I thought--”

“I know what you thought. That’s why I’m not trying to rip your throat out right now. Just…let me go, okay, Derek? Whatever I decide to do, don’t come looking for me. And when I come back…” He gives another sad smile, “Well I’ll see about all the catching up I have to do.”

He stands, turns away and starts to leave. He pauses just at the edge of Derek’s sight. “You know, what McCall pulled was completely wrong.” He said. “But it did work. Imagine what the two of you could pull off if you actually got your heads out of your asses and worked together.”

It’s the last thing Derek hears from Jackson for a very, very long time.

And in the end?

It’s okay.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Colton Haynes is leaving the cast for season three. This is partially a Derek character study, and partially a manifestation of my hope that Jackson leaves the show with grace and dignity, and my desperate hope that he'll return eventually.


End file.
